United By Prayer
A reading for Thursday, February 9, 2017: Acts 10:1-16.
Two stories. Different men and different places. One a gentile and one a Jew. The first is traditionally an enemy of God's people, a centurion who occupied land and kept it for Caesar. The other a disciple of Jesus, who committed to spread the good news of the gospel far and wide. These two men could not be any more different in the ancient world...
What unites them? It is prayer. Both men, the story tells us, act fervently with God in prayer. Cornelius "prayed constantly to God." We get the sense that this a regular practice when we read, "Peter went up on the roof to pray." In this way, through prayer, God was able to act through these men to bring hope and good news to the Gentile just as with the Jew.
We are divided today in so many ways: politically, racially, gender, age, and of course religion. I wonder if prayer today might also be what unites us? Even if those prayers are different, God might use prayer and continue to act through our prayers to bring good news to all the world yet again.
In a world that remains divided, I wonder if we might be united by prayer?
Two stories. Different men and different places. One a gentile and one a Jew. The first is traditionally an enemy of God's people, a centurion who occupied land and kept it for Caesar. The other a disciple of Jesus, who committed to spread the good news of the gospel far and wide. These two men could not be any more different in the ancient world...
What unites them? It is prayer. Both men, the story tells us, act fervently with God in prayer. Cornelius "prayed constantly to God." We get the sense that this a regular practice when we read, "Peter went up on the roof to pray." In this way, through prayer, God was able to act through these men to bring hope and good news to the Gentile just as with the Jew.
We are divided today in so many ways: politically, racially, gender, age, and of course religion. I wonder if prayer today might also be what unites us? Even if those prayers are different, God might use prayer and continue to act through our prayers to bring good news to all the world yet again.
In a world that remains divided, I wonder if we might be united by prayer?
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